Status of Women committee  I want to say that professional economists across the country are united in the opinion that doing away with the mandatory census is a bad move. Limiting statistical analysis compromises political debate and undermines evidence-based policy-making. I just wanted to contribute tha

Status of Women committee  I was just going to say that the example you used, the single parent who is trying to get her kids out the door and may be reluctant to take on the time for the mandatory...that's exactly the kind of situation we're talking about. If it's voluntary, we will not hear from that gro

Status of Women committee  I signed a petition.

Status of Women committee  My main published work on unpaid work used the general social survey, but in doing so I discovered both the strengths and weaknesses of that. It's very rich in detail. You can decide, concerning what Ms. Brown said, whether you're going to count shopping as work or not in how you

Status of Women committee  I'm not sure if this is a direct answer to your question, but I think one of the strengths of the census data is the mix, the range of information. It might not be the most perfect unpaid work question, it may not be the most perfect job-related question, but the elements are all

Status of Women committee  The unpaid work activities are an important part of what women's advocacy has tried to make clear. It's not just in terms of providing those services; it's in terms of how that work relates to paid work and the inequalities in the labour market. Definitely, it has an important r

Status of Women committee  I think the point about the inability to do that historical analysis and the continuity is extremely important. And we have also all made points about the problems of reliability in terms of underrepresentation of certain groups in a voluntary survey.

Status of Women committee  I have a couple of comments. I agree that the purpose of the data is not just for research, although Statistics Canada does make money from people using their data for research. In terms of the unpaid work question, in my own experience there certainly is academic research on it

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I'm very pleased to speak to you today on this crucial issue. I'm an economist who specializes in research related to understanding gender and equality. I have experience using Statistics Canada data. I'd like to speak first of its importance for economic analysis.

Status of Women committee  I have thought about this question of what maternity should be within the same program, and there are some good reasons to have it outside. On the other hand, there already are some different provisions and requirements for our parental benefits, special benefits, compared to re

Status of Women committee  I was going to go on to say that I would prefer to have it kept within EI, and partly because it is a job interruption. I think we need expectations of who works and of multiple-earner families and so on as that changes; then the range of job interruptions is more than just a que

Status of Women committee  I have just one point on revenue neutrality. EI is supposed to an automatic stabilizer. It's supposed to be taking in more money when times are good and then paying out more money when times aren't. Over the good years since the EI reform was put in place, it built up a tremendou

Status of Women committee  --the closing of a company in a small town. We're in a particular situation with the recession, and EI is designed ideally to be able to deal with different causes of unemployment. With the recession, which is temporary, where everybody is losing jobs and it's expected to be shor

Status of Women committee  I'd like to jump in, if I may. On the issue of choice, of course I agree with the constrained choices that people face, especially on the caregiving responsibilities. There's another aspect of the choice, which is the demand side of the labour market. Everything we've heard abou

Status of Women committee  There were two parts to the question. One related to--